MARÍA BLANCHARD

(1881 / 1932)

MARIA BLANCHARD Santander (1881) / Paris (1932) "Girl with an Apple", c.1926

Oil on canvas. On the reverse, an unfinished work depicting a mother with a child. This work comes from a group of pieces that had remained hidden for almost a century. After Maria Blanchard's death in Paris in 1932, part of her output remained with her sister, Carmen Gutierrez Blanchard, who had lived with the artist in the French capital during her final years. These works later passed to her daughter, Carmen Egea, and through her marriage to an American citizen, crossed the Atlantic to remain, ever since, within the same family in the United States - outside the art market and the artist's historiography. The existence of this group of works was known to Blanchard specialists, but its whereabouts had been lost over time. "Nina de la manzana" is the first piece from this family collection to come to public light, the property of the granddaughter of Carmen Egea, making it not only a work of great pictorial quality but also a significant documentary discovery for the study of the artist. Provenance: Maria Blanchard. Carmen Gutierrez Blanchard (the artist's sister). Carmen Egea (the above's daughter), married to an American citizen. Private collection, United States (by direct descent). We thank Maria Jose Salazar for her generous assistance in cataloguing this lot. Measurements: 71.5 x 60 cm